Thursday, August 20, 2009

Two Reasons to Invest in CMMS Software during a Recession

These days many companies are scaling back on expenditures of any kind. And, why not? It just makes sense. Obviously, the severe economic downturn has impacted organizations across the United States and the Globe. Capital conservation has become the rule and cutbacks are inevitable. Yet, this is the just the kind of environment that completely justifies investment in Computerized Maintenance Management Software for organizations seeking to lower costs and protect vital plant and equipment assets. That’s your responsibility, right?
1. Immediately Lower Operational Costs – Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) Software provides an essential tool for managers working aggressively working to decrease downtime, inventory, material and contractor costs. Here’s how:

a. Less DowntimeSimple: Decreased downtime means increased production. A 1% improvement in productivity has 10 times the positive impact than a 1% reduction in costs. Imagine the gain in a production facility running 24 hours per day: A conservative estimated gain of 24 hours of production per year pours thousands of dollars to the bottom line. Savings estimate: Downtime cost of $2,500/Hour x 24 Hours = $60,000 annual profit increase.
b. Reduced InventoryElementary: Asset maintenance management allows you purchase inventory and parts when you need them instead of relying on guesswork. Without CMMS Software, managers might not know what is in their stockroom, can’t find what they need and, frequently end up buying parts they already have. Of course, CMMS Software allows you to lookup parts, check stock and order only as needed. Savings estimate: Reducing an $800,000 inventory just 10% with a 10% interest rate results in an annual savings of over $8,000 in an annual profit increase.
c. Eliminate Contractor CostsSmart: Managed maintenance keeps repairs in-house using a more efficient work crew. CMMS Software focuses crew time on work orders designed to keep the plant moving. Result? No maintenance logjams requiring expensive contractor time. This outcome creates not only a savings on labor but also a savings on parts! Savings estimate: Using a realistic 10% annual reduction in labor and material costs on a budget of $680,000 you return another $68,000 to the bottom line.
2. Increase Maintenance Productivity Right Now – Better work planning and scheduling maximizes crew efficiency while focusing crew time on work orders designed to keep the plant moving. Productivity increases of 10% to 20% using modern CMMS Software are standard. Maintenance managers know that saving just 60 minutes (12.5%) per day for each worker in a six-person crew at a $30/hr labor rate for 250 days/year can preserve $45,000 annually for the organization.

When implemented properly, a Computerized Maintenance Management System using CMMS Software can be a huge cost and time saving addition to your organization’s bottom line. Isn’t that what your objective is?

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Improved performance - WWF Malaysia

WWF - Malaysia automates support operations to achieve improved performance in tracking assets dynamically, managing asset maintenance with FacilitiesDesk.

Business Challenge

The global conservation organization, WWF-Malaysia has worked on important conservation projects, from saving endangered species such as tigers and turtles, to protecting our highland forests, rivers and seas. As they grew and their area of work varies from Species, Forests, Freshwater, Marine, Environmental education, Policy, all these demanded access of lots of resources and tools to manage activities. And the challenge is to manage all those resources, assets and their facilities avoiding manual and paper based process.

WWF - Malaysia started relying on spreadsheets and their email system to facilitate information gathering and retention; and notify them on critical dates. At times, institutional memory was used on certain issues. This system was quite laborious and time-consuming for administrators to manually manage information and facilities management activities.

WWF - Malaysia therefore decided to implement software that featured the integrated facilities management capabilities and generated reports that were relevant to the environmental tasks carried out. They evaluated many leading facilities management and reporting software to identify what best suited their needs. While some of them had fewer features and lack of efficient pre-sales support, others carried exorbitant price tags.

WWF - Malaysia was in need of a simple and cost-effective, easy-to-use yet feature-rich tool to eliminate its issues relating to asset management and reporting.

The Solution

A clear vision to keep track of assets that are on the move, to maintain dynamic service history and notify the support operations personnel on critical dates compelled WWF - Malaysia to try out several alternatives. The choice of software narrowed down to FacilitiesDesk.

A qualified list of innate features and dynamic support came in as major attractions for WWF - Malaysia to immediately choose and deploy the software. Being a NGO environmental management organization, WWF - Malaysia wanted to "Go Green" with FacilitiesDesk. Facility sector of support operations at WWF - Malaysia found it quite easy to use the Web-based Facilities Management Software to maintain, track and manage assets and reporting from a central console. In clear terms, FacilitiesDesk had significantly simplified Facilities Management activities support operations staff at WWF - Malaysia.


The FacilitiesDesk Advantage

One of the many features that had compelled WWF - Malaysia to choose FacilitiesDesk was its extensive list of Reports. Many of these were found to be quite essential to meet the needs of tracking tons of activities happening with WWF - Malaysia. The ability to schedule report generation with an option to send it to a customized list of addresses came in as added advantage. Moreover, the fully web-based and intuitive user interface enabled easy access and usage of FacilitiesDesk even by front line officials, who are not familiar with Software Technology, resulting in a clear dip in the learning curve graph of "non-technical" users.

An important aspect that impressed WWF - Malaysia was the devoted and technically competent support team that provided round the clock support along with quick resolution of issues. Also, FacilitiesDesk's purchasing feature was considered needful because, they were is also looking for a tool to aid the purchasing job function. Being an NGO, it helps them in having an audit trail for both internal & external auditors.


The Outcome

"As our organisation grew in size, we found that recording our data on a simple spreadsheet wasn't good enough. We had to move to a database that could relate one piece of information to another. So, the management decided that we engage on suitable software that can capture this information effectively.

Although we have minimal computer knowledge and just in few weeks of usage, we found FacilitiesDesk software is easy to use thus helps in managing our various resources in the organisation. We find the ability to link one database to another is very useful in consolidating our information on one particular resource.

The structures in the system able us to group relevant information together thus allowing us to present all details in an orderly manner; e.g The division of pages (module) in this software helps us to focus on relevant section of Facility Management i.e. there is the Vendor, Asset, and Purchasing section.

In general, the system has made findings mush easier compare to the traditional way of having different folders for each topic. Here with this system all topics are carefully listed together on a page and separated with just a click away. We have saved plenty of time, energy and papers.

We are pleased with this new system and thank FacilitiesDesk very much"

- Seng Yip Leong, Senior Executive Facilities, Support Operations Department. WWF-Malaysia.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

WWF-Malaysia talks about FacilitiesDesk

Hello all,

We are happy to share with you the testimonial of WWF Malaysia.

WWF - Malaysia automates support operations to achieve improved performance in tracking assets dynamically, managing asset maintenance with FacilitiesDesk.

"FacilitiesDesk is easy-to-use, completely web-based and integrated facilities management software. It has simplified traditional way of tracking assets and helped us save plenty of time, energy and papers."

- Seng Yip Leong, Senior Executive Facilities - Support Operations Department,
WWF, Malaysia.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

FacilitiesDesk's Work Order Workflow ~ An Overview

A small work flow of Work Order creation & completion cycle in FacilitiesDesk. Here we are not going to get into details of Work Order management of FacilitiesDesk , just an overview.

Step 1: ~ Creation

Requesters from various Sites can raise a Work Request through
  • E-mail
  • Phone
  • Web Portal
  • PDA
  • Forums
  • Chat
Step 2: Automation & Processing

We can automate the whole process by configuring various Business Rules & SLA.



Step 3: ~ Completion

The Supervisor who is assigned to take care of the Work Order will act upon it. He can in turn use the help of a CraftPerson to carry out the task. Registers the Work Log for the Work.
On Completion of the Request he responds to the Requester with the information.


To learn more on 'How to improve your maintenance management' click here

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

FaciliesDesk ~ HotFix for 5.7 - Release Announcement

Dear Users,

We are glad to release the Hot Fix build no: 5701 for FacilitiesDesk.
Exisiting users (from Build numbers: 5700) can apply the HotFix 5701 from the following link:

New users can directly download the exe file of the product from the following link:

http://www.manageengine.com/products/facilities-desk/download.html?features


Please find the release highlights below:
  1. Reports enhancement. Refined Search functionality included in this build
  2. Yearly calendar functionality offered for Preventive Maintenance Feature
  3. Extended work request creation based on Preventive Maintenance task introduced
  4. All details available as list views in all the features can be exported as PDF, CSV, XML and Excel format and can be instantly e-mailed to desired recipients
  5. Room booking: Alert to supervisor when room is booked
  6. Left tree revamped in resources. Based on product category, product type and space-based filtering
  7. Left tree revamped in reports.
  8. Add image to products. Replicate those for individual resources in case of non-availability of particular resource images

Below are the issue fixed in the previous build 5700:

  1. Issue on importing using Active Directory in MSSQL fixed
  2. Room edit issue fixed under Space Management configuration
  3. Image attachment issue fixed in Resource Management configuration
  4. Save, save and add new issue fixed in Admin
  5. Issue fixed in Purchase Order approval
  6. Multi line issue in text area fixed
  7. Contract udf pick list issue fixed

Many more trivial issues were also fixed apart from these to improve the working of FacilitiesDesk. Hope you now have excellent usability experience.

As always all your feedback are welcome.

Happy Facility Management!

For support please Contact:

facilitiesdesk-support@manageengine.com

Call Our Toll Free
US : +1 888 720 9500
Intl: +1 925 924 9500

Friday, August 7, 2009

Enjoy your Weekend


Why run to office or to your home computer to manage emergency or urgent work request. Enjoy your weekend, access FacilitiesDesk from your PDA(iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia etc) for any urgent work.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Why FacilitiesDesk

Need for an "Integrated" Facility Management Software to automate facility management:

Why do you need a Facility Management tool?

Optimizing facility management can save your organization a considerable percentage of its maintenance contract charge. Breakdown of resources can take a toll in your revenue through loss in productivity. Costly downtimes can be reduced if a proper facility management system is in place.

Types of Facility Management Software:

Computer-aided facility management (CAFM) software focuses primarily on space management issues: who owns the property, People of the workplace, where are the facilities located, how many facilities are present across the globe, how much does it cost to run the operation in each facility, and so forth. It also is used to manage moves and renovation projects that change how the spaces look and work. There is also usually a graphical component to CAFM so that users can connect CAD plans to facilities database information.

Computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software focuses primarily on maintenance issues and problem resolution. Assets in a facility break down and somebody has to fix them. The primary vehicles for communicating problems and resolutions are the initial work request that is logged when something is wrong and the work order that is created to track the steps to fix the problem. In short maintenance management, work order tracking and preventive maintenance are the order of the day for a CMMS Application.

In CMMS software Preventive maintenance focuses on processes and activities designed to maintain assets before they break and to extend their life. CMMS may include tools to manage parts, equipment documentation, fleet maintenance, staff and subcontractor activities, and so forth.


Which type would suit you?


CAFM and CMMS sometimes overlap in the area of work orders. Most CAFM software uses work orders to manage staff and Facilities, employees and team’s relocations.

The work order provides a convenient and efficient tool to manage the details that go with these activities.In large organizations having facilities and operated across globe, different teams are generally responsible for facility and maintenance issues.

Each group may want software applications that meet their specific needs. In smaller organizations the same team may be responsible for both functions and prefer a tightly integrated solution that meets all their needs.

Why should you choose FacilitiesDesk?

FacilitiesDesk addresses the needs of both CAFM and CMMS seekers.

FacilitiesDesk Plus Editions

FacilitiesDesk Standard Edition is Computerized Maintenance Management Software (CMMS) tailored to help managers like you to take control of the complete maintenance management of your facilities across the globe from this single console.

    • Preventive or Scheduled Maintenance management
    • Breakdown maintenance request management
    • Tracking and monitoring the work orders

On the whole, FacilitiesDesk standard edition provides all that you need to have in full-fledged and productive Maintenance HelpDesk – a CMMS.

Facilities Management

FacilitiesDesk Enterprise Edition is a CAFM (Computer Aided Facilities Management) Software. And the good
news is that (mainly for the SMBs) FacilitiesDesk enterprise edition is available at an interestingly affordable price point compared to other CAFM vendors.

It includes all the features of the standard edition plus entire portfolio management with property, lease and space management and Move Management. If you are looking at a fully fledged Facility management tool enterprise edition is the best fit.

  • Property Management & Lease Management - Access information and manage the details of all nature with respect to your properties and their lease structures of all your facilities across the globe from a central console.
  • Space Management - Intuitively visualize and analyze the utility of the space available in all your facilities across different locations and manage to put the space to use more effectively. Space management with FacilitiesDesk is made efficient with the help of tools like graphs and AutoCAD integration.
  • Move Management - Good news with FacilitiesDesk is that no more Chaos while initiating a move, in other words relocation. The Move management feature in enterprise edition helps in the complete move cycle from planning till the completion of relocation.
  • Room Booking - With FacilitiesDesk room booking feature you will see effective room booking management with least chaos and eradicated double bookings. This takes care of the chores like pre-setting the meeting room and allows the meeting chair to concentrate on the cores of conducting a meeting.
Facility managers typically want a single application to manage both facilities and CMMS processes and FacilitiesDesk is tailored to fulfill both needs. Also FacilitiesDesk offers all that a CAFM offers interestingly at the price of CMMS.

Do not take my word for it…Try it…decide for yourself…

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

11 ways that your building wastes energy

Follow up to our baby steps towards "Go Green" mania this post is on how we can minimize energy wastage.
If you take a close-up look at your facilities, you'll discover that energy is being wasted in ways you didn't realize. Nice post on this by Leah B.Garris, though its a old one but still will be useful for us to follow and save energy. I have listed the 11 points here, for details you can visit the post here


1. Leaving Electronics & Appliances turned on.
2. Dirty Filters
3. Dripping Faucets
4. Unneccessary Vending Machine Cooling & Lighting
5. Cleaning at Night
6. Dirty Windows and Skylights
7. Not Optimizing Equipment Startup Time & Sequencing
8. Thremostat mounted in wrong locations
9. Exhaust Fans that run all the time
10. Covering up vents, grilles etc
11. Incandescent exit signs

We can carry out or schedule a preventive maintenance activity to check the above 11 points using FacilitiesDesk. This way, we can capture even the least wastage of energy.

Monday, August 3, 2009

31 Days to improve your IWMS/CAFM Implementation

A series of nice posts on how to improve your IWMS/CAFM implementation by Steven Hanks from IWMSNEWS. Its a 31 day series now three days completed.

Day 1: Gather information about your current implementation
Day2: Evaluate your contract
Day 3: Create a Customer Satisfaction Survey

We follow/respect Steven Hanks. This gives a opportunity to us to evaluate FacilitiesDesk and see where we stand and how we can improve. You can also follow the posts and can improve your FacilitiesDesk implementation.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

6 easy ways to create Work Request

There are 6 easy ways through which Work Request can be created through FacilitiesDesk.




Here it goes,

1. Supervisor or Helpdesk personnel can create a Work Request on behalf of User/Requester or they themselves can create a Work Request.
2. User's can login to the software with their User name & Password and create Work Request.

3. Can provide a non-login form through which User's can create a work request without logging into the software by just providing their e-mail id, subject & description of the request.

4. Can configure Mail Server settings (Both incoming & Outgoing mail server settings). After that when User/Requester shoots an e-mail to the specified e-mail id(support email id) configured in the incoming mail serve settings, it automatically gets created as a work request. You can read more about configuring your mail server here.

5. Login to the software using PDA & raise a work request.

6. Scheduling Preventive Maintenance task also triggers creation of work request on the scheduled date & time.